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Monday, 10 February 2014

Slavoj Žižek Against Postmodernist Counterrevolutionaries

Slavoj Žižek
states that each and every postmodernist, post-structuralist
(deconstructionist, etc.) and so on believes that capitalism is “the
only game in town” (321). Is Žižek
an intellectual cretin? Or, alternatively, is this Marxist
absolutism and simplicity - the generalisations, stereotypes,
essentialism, etc. - required in order to bring about Total
Revolution? That is, are Žižek's
gross generalisations about postmods, poststruts, etc. required by
the Marxist project itself?

For a start, Žižek
is ignoring all those academics and theorists who are indeed Marxists
or at least quasi-Marxists. Post-Colonial Studies, Critical Theory,
'subaltern studies', etc. are virtually all Marxist disciplines.
Above and beyond that are the legions of Marxist academics who work
in the various social sciences, from anthropology, history, sociology
to psychology. Clearly Žižek is
showing his totalitarian (or 'totalist') credentials in that, like
all Marxists, he will never be happy until the whole of society, not
just academia and the Gramscian “institutions”, belong to
Marxists like himself.

The first thing is Žižek's
typically black-and-white stance that because postmods don't accept
the Marxist alternative (violent revolution and the complete
destruction of capitalism), then they don't really accept any
alternative or even any change. Žižek
knows as well as anyone else that many – probably most –
postmods have problems with capitalism even if they don't platonise
or essentialise it as Žižek does.
Their problem, according to Žižek,
is that they aren't outright Marxists who believe in (violent)
revolution. Similarly, they don't see everything in terms of “class
antagonisms” either. However, it doesn't follow from all that that
they see capitalism as being “the only game in town” (as Žižek
claims that they do)... Except that it does to a Marxist like
Žižek who thinks in such
absolutist and black-and-whitist ways. Indeed Marxism demands that
you do so because the Revolution requires such absolutism and
black-and-whitism.

For one thing, some postmods,
poststruts, etc. may have learned, from Antonio Gramsci, that even if
'radicals' have given up on the overnight (violent) revolution, they
can still nonetheless “take
over the institutions”. Indeed they have taken
over the institutions! For example, postmod and poststrut radicals
(if sometimes watered-down ones), as well as outright Marxists, have
taken over large parts of the following: the universities, the BBC,
the law, the rights business and the race industry, the publishing
houses, the charities, the interfaith circuit, local and national
newspapers, etc.

These postmods, poststruts,
etc. may simply be 'gradualists' or 'reformists” in the old style –
much to the chagrin of the classical Marxists like Žižek.
However, it doesn't follow from that they they aren't critics of
capitalism or even that they ignore the economy. Only a Marxist would
think in such a simplistic manner. Nonetheless, to a certain degree
Žižek is right about the
postmods, poststruts, etc: if only when you see things from a Marxist
perspective. The postmods, poststruts, etc. haven't brought about
Year Zero. The capitalist world hasn't gone up in smoke. The Gulag
hasn't been filled with 'fascists', 'Nazis', 'reactionaries', 'the
far right', 'Islamophobes', 'bigots', 'xenophobes', etc; and the
capitalist haven't been hung by their intestines from the nearest
trees. Perhaps the postmods, poststruts, etc., being “bleeding-heart
liberals” (as Zizek calls them), don't want all that bloodshed, or
the “Terror”
(to use Žižek's own word),
which the Revolution will inevitably bring about.

Žižek,
being some kind of tough guy (even one with a beard and a lisp),
wants Terror. Most postmods and poststruts don't.

Capitalism Allows
Subjectivities

Žižek
explains his position on the postmodern counterrevolution thus:

“... today's capitalism,
rather, provides the very background and terrain for the emergence of
shifting-dispersed-contingent-ironic- and so on, political
subjectivities.” (108)

Now that sounds quite
incredible. Prima facie and in my naivete, you'd think that
even Marxists would argue that capitalism works against “the
emergence of shifting-dispersed-contingent-ironic- and so on,
political subjectivities”. But Žižek
is saying the exact opposite. It seems, then, that capitalism
is criticised for not allowing “political subjectivities”
and it's also criticised for allowing them! Postmods, poststruts,
etc., or at least some of them, have certainly claimed the former.
Now Žižek is admitting
that it is capitalism itself which allows “political
subjectivities” to flower and flourish – and he doesn't appear to
like that. (This is like the Nazi criticism of Jews which states that
they are all Marxists and that they are all'neo-cons',
or 'Zionists', or 'right-wing capitalists'.)

Žižek
goes into detail as to why capitalism, rather than stopping the
expression of “subjectivities” or “hybrid entities”, has in
fact enabled them or even brought them about. And Žižek,
as I said, isn't happy with this.

So on the one hand postmods,
poststruts, etc. are unhappy with capitalism's “oppression” or
censorship of this group or that minority (as Marxists
tend to do also when not reading Žižek).
And on the other hand Žižek has
a problem with capitalism's enabling of, well, Difference and the
Other.

Žižek
says that capitalism

“has created the
conditions for the demise of 'essentialist' politics and the
proliferation of new multiple political subjectivities. So, again, to
make myself clear.... [capitalism] creates the very background
against which 'generalised hegemony' can thrive.” (319)

Let me put that in plain
English.

Multiple political
subjectivities are a problem for Žižek
because he doesn't want such multiple political
subjectivities: he wants the working class as a whole to fight
capitalism. Or, at the very least, Žižek
wants all the other subjectivities to unite behind the
“hegemony” that is the working class. This multiplicity of
subjectivities and “hybrid identities” simply muddies the water
that is the ancient (Marxist) class war.

You see, what the postmods,
etc. don't realise is that all this

“playing with multiple,
shifting personas... [simply] tends to obfuscate... the constraints
of social space in which our experience is trapped” (103).

In other words, all this
postmod “playing” occurs within capitalist states. It really is
that simple. Therefore it really is “playing” simply because it's
all done with the domain of capitalism “in which our experience is
trapped”.

I don't suppose that Žižek
ever out-rightly says that all this postmod “playing” is
utterly pointless because I suspect that such an explicit statement -
or absolutist stance - would work against his image as a hip and
radical philosopher (even a “dangerous” one). Nonetheless, he
comes pretty close to saying that!

Again and again Žižek
argues against any position, any stance, and any subjectivity,
which works against Total Revolution. Despite that, it is of course
the case that Žižek must,
in a sense, support these “subjectivities” otherwise he'd be
classed as a 'reactionary' or even a 'fascist' by many non-Marxist
radicals. (It can be argued that Žižek
is a fascist: a red fascist.) However, Žižek's
support for these subjectivities is violently qualified. In fact he's
fundamentally against the dilution or dissolution of the class war.
And that's why, as everyone knows, Marxists simply use
minorities - or these various subjectivities - as tools in the
Revolution. And if they don't work as tools in the Revolution, then
Marxists (specifically Trotskyists) discard them or even worse. Of
course, many feminists, gays, blacks, Muslims, etc. know never to
trust a party-aligned Marxist (especially if he's a Trotskyist).
Still, in this relationship of mutual use, the Marxists still
help these various subjectivities - but only to help further their
own white, middle-class Revolution. Alternatively, and this really
amounts to the same thing, Marxists will enable and patronise
minorities - or subjectivities – if and only if such help helps the
revolutionary political party to which they belong. (The UK's
Socialist
Workers Party, or SWP, is a perfect and notorious example
of this Marxist mindset.)

The bottom line, then, is
that the postmods, the poststruts, etc. are not outright
revolutionary Marxists (or old-fashioned Marxist fundamentalists).
The Marxist apostasy of the postmods is their “silent suspension of
class analysis”. Žižek also
believes that “class antagonism is disavowed” (97) in postmod
analysis and theory. And that is a great sin against Marx and the
Revolution.

There's more.

Žižek
not only accuses the postmods of being counterrevolutionaries
(which they may happily admit to): he also gets personal. He argues
that because postmods aren't obsessed with capitalism and violent
revolution (as he is), then they must of necessity pay “somewhat
'excessive' attention to” such things as “sexism [and] racism”
(97). Now that sounds like a terrible thing for such a trendy
philosopher to say. It could easily be seen as, God forbid,
reactionary. Žižek,
of course, has an easy answer to that blasphemous accusation. It is
this:

You postmods, instead of
paying excessive attention to racism and sexism, why not look at the
true cause of sexism, racism and indeed of all evils – Capitalism.
You are focusing on symptoms rather than on the true cause.

This is why the Marxist's
(especially if a Trotskyist) collaborations with feminists, blacks,
gays, Muslims is only ever half-hearted or, more accurately,
opportunistic and cynical. In the black-and-white mind of the Marxist
forever lurks the idea that postmods, gays, Muslims, blacks, etc.
should be agitating for Total Revolution; not putting plasters on the
wounds of Capitalism. In other words, all this newfangled “human
rights, ecology, racism, sexism” (97) nonsense simply gets in the
way of Real Change. And that Real Change, of course, can only be
brought about by a Revolution. And after the Revolution, there will
of course be heaven on earth (as 20th century history has
shown us).

Again, this is why Marxist
parties/movements don't genuinely or sincerely (certainly not
altruistically!) unite themselves with ethnic groups, feminists,
Muslims, gays, etc: they use them instead. (They usually
infiltrate their groups/movements and try to take them over.) The
problem, according to Marxist parties, is that not only have these
groups and individuals got it all wrong: ultimately, they are
actually working against the Revolution and therefore in support of
Capitalism. This, then, explains why Marxist parties/groups
(especially Trotskyist ones) are so cynical and opportunistic when it
comes to their phoney alliances with minority or “oppressed”
groups. This also explains, quite simply, why they use them.

The Labour Party, on the whole, isn't a Marxist or a communist party. However, there are very many cross-currents and interactions between the Labour Party and the Trotskyist/communist Left, mainly on the periphery but also deeper within.

As for the Fabian Society, it isn't a “revolutionary" (as in violent revolution) organisation but it is still, nonetheless, uniquely dangerous and elitist. Its approach to "radically changing society" is very similar to that taken by the followers of the Italian communist, Antonio Gramsci.